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Make no mistake - I don't watch football games without the benefit of a DVR either. I think I read somewhere that there are only 11 minutes of actual action during a typical 3 hour football telecast.

Basically, I no longer watch anything live, especially sporting events. As Americans, we're bombarded with more advertising than any other human beings on earth, some 400 messages a day on average. Anything that provides some relief from that relentless and mind-numbing onslaught is a gift. The DVR has to go down as one of mankind's greatest inventions, right up there with the electric light, sliced bread, and the bikini.

It's funny how people view advertising these days.. feels like a lot of people out there feel enpowered by DVRs that they're above watching commercials because they know they have the ability to skip past them. Yet when it comes to the Olympics, people are so outraged that the streaming coverage would dare to plaster a sponsor logo across the top that they're incapable of getting rid of. As if they're upset that advertisers found a new way to push their products and suddenly viewers can't do anything about it. I believe the expression for that is "first world problems."

This is television. It has nothing to do with people, it's to do with ratings! For fifty years, we've told them what to eat, what to drink, what to wear. So what do we do? We give 'em what they want!

It's funny how people view advertising these days.. feels like a lot of people out there feel enpowered by DVRs that they're above watching commercials because they know they have the ability to skip past them. Yet when it comes to the Olympics, people are so outraged that the streaming coverage would dare to plaster a sponsor logo across the top that they're incapable of getting rid of. As if they're upset that advertisers found a new way to push their products and suddenly viewers can't do anything about it. I believe the expression for that is "first world problems."

Not me. That's one of the reasons I'm not a "cord cutter". Not having to be subjected to all that inescapable advertising on streaming platforms is worth something tangible to me.

I've been trying to track down the version of John Williams' Olympic Fanfare and Theme since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Yes, for almost 22 years.

You can hear pieces of the theme during NBC's current primetime presentation. That got me thinking again about trying to track this particular version down.

Back in 1992 I recorded the NBC coverage on Umatic tape, not VHS. The stereo audio was put onto the tape using dbx noise reduction. Obviously the FM TV audio reduced the frequency response. It goes out to 14 kHz. I edited the tape, keeping the closing credits, which used the theme during the montage/credits.

According to the John Williams' web site, there have been three studio recordings. Not one of them matches the version that NBC has used since Barcelona.

I'm under the impression that a special studio recording was done for NBC, which has never been released commercially. I'm hoping that isn't the case and that someone here knows the deal regarding this recording.

If you think you can help, PM me and I'll respond with the link in which to download the video. It is not on my server. I had to upload it to a different server, as it is 95 MB in size (H.264/AC3 mkv SD).

Hopefully someone can help me track this down.

Thanks in advance.

Try "By Request, The best of john Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra" on Phillips. It is the first track.

I agree the commercial load compared to the amount of actual action seems excessive during the Olympics, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to be. Also doesn't help matters that you're talking about hundreds of hours of coverage and the same commercials are repeating over and over again.

The commercial load is indeed horrible. And most definitely the fact that the same damn commercials are being shown over and over doesn't help the situation.

The babysitter asking for $60 over and over and over is getting annoying.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

Try "By Request, The best of john Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra" on Phillips. It is the first track.

Not it. PM will be sent.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

tvpaint has verified what I've believed all along, sortof. While I thought it was a special studio recording session, it was actually a custom remix, specifically for NBC. I suspect that it will never be released.

Thanks tvpaint for the info.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

In both Hockey Semifinals explosive this afternoon at 13h Sweden-Finland and USA-Canada 18h to follow on Sport1 Deutchland ...
Girls last night in the final Canada reversed course in 3'50 "in the third period 2-0, they return to 2-1 to 1'35" at the end they released their guardian and the empty net frollent they defeat on a long distance shot of the USA, the puck crashing into the post ...
On the next action the Canadian redundant (6) equates to 54 "...
In extra time they mark the 3rd goal, sudden death USA ...

Just watched the skating finale won by the Russian Adelina Sotnikova, a slight, gorgeous brunette figure skater, who reminded me of their seemingly endless supply of tall, gorgeous, blond tennis players. I tells ya' - you have to hand it to the Rooskies. They used to be dirty, rotten commies who wanted to bury us. Now they're dirty, rotten oligarchs who want to cheat us. But they sure do seem to have a country chock full of beautiful, athletic women. I call that a draw.

Just watched the skating finale won by the Russian Adelina Sotnikova, a slight, gorgeous brunette figure skater, who reminded me of their seemingly endless supply of tall, gorgeous, blond tennis players. I tells ya' - you have to hand it to the Rooskies. They used to be dirty, rotten commies who wanted to bury us. Now they're dirty, rotten oligarchs who want to cheat us. But they sure do seem to have a country chock full of beautiful, athletic women. I call that a draw.

As I watched the women's competition I kept thinking that if Sotnikova goes on to become famous enough to have a movie made about her Mila Kunis would be perfect for the lead. Both have dark-eyed, roundish faces, and the same slim hipped, athletic build.

There have been many that I have seen in these Olympics that I would love to give some publicity in the Movie with the HOTTEST girl you've ever seen thread, including Bode Miller's wife.

How about the apparent army of tall gorgeous brunette clone snow-maidens dressed head-to-toe all in white (skirt with requisite slit, white boots, white fur hat) and holding the country names as each country got marched into the stadium during the opening ceremony?

the way the USA is playing in the bronze medal game, the hopes of Olympic reward will be diminished in men's hockey. Time for them to come back or gear up for 2018 in Pyongyang South Korea, the second to last Olympics broadcast by NBC.

A bit late to the party, but as to the US picture quality remember that these are conversions from 50i. The motion blur at 1/50th second is greater than 1/60th which effectively means the temporal sampling overlaps. This can soften the image on motion more than usual. Also the frame rate interpolation can compromise downstream encoding as motion compensation is less effective. Finally NBC compared to CBS in their major O&O markets (such as NY & LA), the CBS stations now have a subchannel so they are not the full 19Mbs they used to be, and their network distribution bitrate was reduced 10% when they started multiplexing their east/west feeds. As far as the conversion goes, I think it looks pretty good as I've not really noticed any artifacts specific to it even on fast motion. Content targeting aside, I think NBCU did a good job from a technical standpoint.

A bit late to the party, but as to the US picture quality remember that these are conversions from 50i. The motion blur at 1/50th second is greater than 1/60th which effectively means the temporal sampling overlaps. This can soften the image on motion more than usual. Also the frame rate interpolation can compromise downstream encoding as motion compensation is less effective. Finally NBC compared to CBS in their major O&O markets (such as NY & LA), the CBS stations now have a subchannel so they are not the full 19Mbs they used to be, and their network distribution bitrate was reduced 10% when they started multiplexing their east/west feeds. As far as the conversion goes, I think it looks pretty good as I've not really noticed any artifacts specific to it even on fast motion. Content targeting aside, I think NBCU did a good job from a technical standpoint.

Been watching OTA (local has one subchannel) and it's been the most pixillated crap I have ever had to watch. Absolutely horrible.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

Finally NBC compared to CBS in their major O&O markets (such as NY & LA), the CBS stations now have a subchannel so they are not the full 19Mbs they used to be, and their network distribution bitrate was reduced 10% when they started multiplexing their east/west feeds. As far as the conversion goes, I think it looks pretty good as I've not really noticed any artifacts specific to it even on fast motion. Content targeting aside, I think NBCU did a good job from a technical standpoint.

First off, no one can do 19 Mbps HD video. The total bitrate for the ATSC mux is 19.1 Mbps. With only an HD stream, the video bitrate would be around 17 Mbps. And even that, IMHO, is not enough for 1080i.

As previously mentioned, my NBC affiliate has two other SD streams, leaving only 13.1 Mbps (avg) for the main HD stream. Horrible, just plain horrible.

CBS will be changing their network feeds to H.264 in the future. That said, their current MPEG-2 4:2:2 has a bitrate that is still close to 2x what the affiliates put out.

The NBC network feed, even via their C-band backup, was many times better to watch than the local affiliate.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

I had to LOL when the IOC president said that Russia provided great facilities. There were many complaints about the athletic villiage, i.e., undrinkable/usable water, bathroom doors that locked people in so that they had to bust out, clutter in lots of nooks and crannies, toilet seats put on wrong, etc.

"What do you say Beckett. Wanna have a baby?" - Castle to Det. Beckett"How Long have I been gone?" Alexis after arriving home and seeing Castle and Beckett w/ the baby - Castle - 11/25/13Mr. VideoMy Geek Images

I had to LOL when the IOC president said that Russia provided great facilities. There were many complaints about the athletic villiage, i.e., undrinkable/usable water, bathroom doors that locked people in so that they had to bust out, clutter in lots of nooks and crannies, toilet seats put on wrong, etc.

Just wait until all those big, heavy buildings they built start sinking into the sea. Sochi is below sea level, and only a big, gravel wall is holding it back. It's going to be a real mess in a few years as those buildings and facilities start to break apart. But you won't hear much about that.